James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have a number of points to raise but I will try to be succinct. I know we are under pressure for time. I welcome the Minister and Mr. McRedmond and thank them for their time. I am trying to understand, since this broke in the past couple of weeks, the background and where this is going. Community begins at home. I have tried to look around my constituency to get a flavour of the view on the ground. I spoke to people such as Betty Dolan in the Staplestown Road post office in north Kildare, which is closing. Betty has served with distinction for 30 years. I understand that people like that have paid that service to the State and to the post office and are entitled to their retirement. Long may she enjoy it. There are people such as Sean Fogarty in Ballymore Eustace, which is a great example of an innovative, dynamic, new type of post office. Sean Fogarty has invested in a web café, in an Internet doctor and in all kinds of additional services over and beyond the post office, within the same building. That office is going from strength to strength. There are different models and one size does not fit all. I understand that there are different parameters. I am trying to be objective in weighing this up and have listened to the arguments made by the Minister, by Mr. McRedmond and by other commentators and stakeholders. I have listened to the argument about footfall and the argument that some of the post offices do not have critical mass, and that there is maybe a case for rationalisation and consolidation. I am taking that at face value.

I am trying to understand that but, in doing so, I looked at the wider context. I thought about people in some of the areas served by rural post offices and thought that maybe, if they need a State service and there needs to be a State presence in the village or community, then maybe there is a local Garda station that a person can go to instead if that person needs a port of call to the State. Then I realised that 139 Garda stations were closed by the Government in the last term. Five were closed in my constituency of Kildare and west Wicklow. That line is not open to them.

The argument that they can go online would be very sensible and progressive if it worked. It would be a great alternative avenue for accessing post office services but we know that, out of three bidders for the national broadband plan, we have lost two and a half out of three bidders. That scheme is at least five years out of date, with no sign of broadband access coming to rural areas any time soon.

We might take solace that they are receiving some infrastructure and that Leader funding is being invested into communities. That might be a good news story but I checked the figures and the Leader programme is being cut by 40%, €150 million. That is a social infrastructural deficit.

We might think back to the traditional hub of the community being the rural general practitioner, GP. I know Deputy Harty, who is here, is very knowledgeable in this area. We might think that at least the local doctor is still there as a bastion of the community or a hub but then we find out that those have been consolidated into primary care centres. The rural practitioner allowance has been taken away and stripped back.

When all is said and done, people can get into a car and drive 15 km to the new post office that is now serving the area. I checked the report and the most recent audit of regional and local roads tells us that 70% of those roads have a structural deficit and the Minister, Deputy Ross, is not putting any more money into that any time soon.

With all that said, it really is more a question for the Minister than for Mr. McRedmond. It is not a pretty picture for rural Ireland and it does not give solace. Even though the arguments about the post offices can be made on an individual basis in their own right, when one considers the wider context of all the deterioration and denudation of rural Ireland, with rural services being stripped away one by one, one can understand why there was concern in those communities and why people are alarmed about this.

This is a very recent development but I saw on Twitter in the last hour that the Taoiseach has published a wish list for the renewal of the confidence and supply agreement. The Government will be renewed for another two years if that happens. There are nine headings and not one deals with rural development. I do not know if the Minister has a view on that. How does the Government propose to tackle the wider demise and decay of rural Ireland? This is very much a part of that, so I think it is very relevant.